This favorite statement of rage was often made by a former Fundamentalist Baptist evangelist to any Christian he met carrying a Bible or witnessing either from door to door or on the streets of Greenville, often leaving them dumbfounded; but first some background
information.

I first met evangelist Dan (I’ll use a pseudonym) when I
was president of the Lion’s Den, a religious and philosophical discussion group
I led for three years in the late 1980’s.
We met the second Thursday of every month at 7:30 pm. Our group’s flier listed the topic of
discussion as well as the program’s speaker for the month.
The flier ended with:

“The Lion’s Den is a religious / philosophical discussion
group whose purpose is to bring together people of widely differing belief
systems for discussion of their beliefs.”

A write up about me from the 1988 Alumni News of my university

The meeting would open with a general welcome to all present after which time, the person invited to talk on their belief system
was given thirty minutes to explain why he or she believed what they did. In the next thirty to forty minutes, the the
speaker was expected to answer questions and defend their beliefs.

Sometime around 1988 I was told about a major Fundamental
Christian preacher who was now a fiery evangelist for atheism. He even printed up leaflets looking much like Gospels Tracts labeling the Bible,
God and Jesus as lairs so I decided to ask him to speak to our group.

After contacting him, he agreed to talk about
why he left Christianity after decades of being one of the leading
evangelists of the Fundamental Baptists in South Carolina.

I was told that Dan had attended Bob Jones University where
he had won the Senior Sermon Prize in Homiletics and where he was also voted
Bob Jones Man of the Year by the senior class. At one time Dan lead evangelistic meetings throughout the southeast where he regularly preached
the “Old Time Gospel” of God’s total forgiveness though the sacrificial blood
atonement of Jesus Christ. For those who
didn't respond to this message of salvation, Dan could rain down fire and brimstone
from the pit of Hell.

On the night of his talk and for his introduction, Dan
lunched into a diatribe on why the Bible along with its God and Jesus were all
liars. I can say one thing was certain, Dan had not lost any of his
evangelistic zeal as his talk turned into a fiery 40 minute attack on the Bible in which he
simply told us that one day he woke up and realized the whole Christian religious
system was a huge lie. Fact is, Dan
slammed God so hard that several of our regular members walked out blaming me
for having asked such a “raging atheist” to speak to our group with one telling
me on his way out that he would never come back.

Although Dan talked (or I should say preached for about
forty minutes), none of us ever learned why or how he labeled the whole Christian system a lie or why he left it after decades of being a full time evangelist.

Several years past when in 1994 I was
contacted by a member of the Lion’s Den and was told that he was writing a book
on why people left Christianity. He wanted both Dan and I to each write a chapter
as to why we had become atheists.

After the book was published (with several book signing
around Greenville and news paper articles), Dan and I were asked to lead a
discussion in a large liberal church’s adult Sunday school class about why we
rejected Christianity with Dan being the center of attention since he had gone
to Bob Jones University and had been a full-time evangelist. Interestingly, a number of the class were professors from the Division
of Religious Studies at Furman University who found us oddities to say the
least.

After the meeting with the Sunday school class, Dan and I
stopped by a McDonalds to get some lunch. While we were eating, a church family came in and the man, who appeared to me as
the father, carried a Bible. To my sock and surprise,
once Dan saw them, he got up, walked over to the now seated family and casually
told them that “I Just Wanted You to Know Your Jesus is a Liar!”

The shocked family immediately stopped eating and father challenged Dan’s
statement. Dan said he had proof and
gave the man several of his anti-Christian Gospel Tracts.

By just having left a speaking engagement at a church, both
Dan and I had on our suits with ties.
When Dan returned to our table, the man asked Dan where he had learned
such lies about the Bible. Since Dan refused to respond, I told the man that “we
had just gotten out of Sunday school”. To
which he replied, “My God! What kind of Sunday school teaches this type of thing?!”

To be honest, I really felt perplex as to why Dan had made
such a 180 degree shift in his belief system until I found out that Dan had made
a sexual indiscretion that ended his career as an evangelist also resulting in the lost of both his wife and children.

For the first time, Dan was faced with the fact that
Fundamentalist bury their wounded, especially on sexual sins. Though Dan had been taught and preached that
the love of God though the acceptance of the Blood Atonement of Jesus could
wash away all and any sins, in reality with Christian Fundamentalism, the bigger you
are, the harder you fall and Dan hit this Biblical reality hard!

Now as a marked man, Dan had to face the fact that for him
as a Baptist Fundamentalist, the Bible with its God and Jesus offered totally no redemption for his ministry career with his past religious life now damned
forever. From that time on for Dan, the
theology of the Bible with its God and Jesus were all lairs. Though Dan never revealed the reason behind
his anger, his mission was now to inform any who would listen (as well as those
who didn't want to hear it) that the whole system of Christian theology was
false . . that from his new found truth, “Jesus
is a Liar!”

Postscript:

I have not seen Dan in years though I understand
he has mellowed out (I think he went though some counseling). The Lion’s Den ended
in around 1990 when we ran out of people willing to discuss and defend their belief system. For me, the end came when I finally located a group who consider
themselves Satanist, but refused to send a speaker.I must say, It was a good three year run and
it was fun!